


strange tradition

by cyanoscarlet



Category: Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: Gen, Introspection, New Year's Eve, Old work, customs and traditions, kind-of character study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-01
Packaged: 2018-10-12 22:00:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10500297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyanoscarlet/pseuds/cyanoscarlet
Summary: There is a basis for the noisy norm that is New Year's Eve, as much as he didn't like it.





	

_"He wasn't there, as always. Probably too busy with his gadgets."_

.

.

New Year's Day wasn't exactly his favorite holiday.

He hated it whenever the people would chat obnoxiously loudly, drink themselves to oblivion, dance endlessly into the night, and make merry as if there were no tomorrow. (What exactly is it called New Year's Day for, again?)

Add to the above the endless lighting of fireworks - no, _firecrakcers_. Such annoying explosions in the middle of the night is but a waste of good gunpowder, and are thus undeserving of being referred to as fire _works_.

The practice (or multitude of them), they said, originated from the belief that bad spirits often visit at the start of every year to "take away all the new year's worth of luck" from the people. However, these entities could only attack in the middle of the night while everyone was asleep. Thus, people started staying awake the whole night and revel in joyful festivities to keep the malevolent forces away. (The evil spirits, they also said, are afraid of noise, of bright lights and of large gatherings.)

However, he, unlike the rest, would often stay at home every New Year's. He refuses invites from friends without fail, and even his father and his sister convince him to no avail. Once alone, he would turn on every gadget in his room - the laptop, the radio, even the old television set that sat in the corner, collecting dust until the 365th evening of every year. He never paid attention to the televised countdown party, neither to the poor DJ left on duty to take song requests from fellow loners. Not even the pages he browses interest him.

This he once shared to his raven-haired seatmate from an elective class over the phone the week school was let out for the holiday break, when the customary question on how he spends his vacation came up. Finding her classmate's well-held-up loner tradition weird, she offered to come over on the 31st, to which he declined (as always).

A cheery goodbye and merry holiday greetings later, he was left alone in his room, momentarily thinking about the offer of company he had just wasted. As the silence built up, these missives left his mind as it was filled with thoughts about the past year and the next to come, reinforcing themselves as the ringing in his ears built up until they reverberated in his mind to no end.

Then it struck him - what he was actually afraid of, what exactly he was protecting himself from, whenever the holiday he despised rolled around. The bad spirits he'd unconsciously been trying to ward off by himself for years were but his own feelings and insecurities, brought about by the stillness of the moment, the supposedly tranquil evening actually doubling his vulnerability against them.

Squall weakly chuckled to himself. So the legend was true, but he'd never believed it until now.

(Still, people had strange ways of dealing with them.)

.

.

_"He was there, all right, but he's still wearing headphones. Some old habits die hard, I guess."_


End file.
